The Raven's Seal

by Andrei Baltakmens

  “It is intolerable,” said Grainger, “that you are driven to purchase your own confinement.”

  “I have not the means to set out a plain appeal for relief. I must ask you to do that for me,” said the prisoner.

  Grainger put his hand to his chin. “I am not accustomed to shaping appeals or requests of any sort. I have no lawyer or adviser to act for me.”

  “They say you are a gentleman. You are well-spoken. You have a clear hand, I guess. That is all I require.”

  “Very well,” said Grainger. “I shall set down your complaint.”

  “I am grateful, sir, uncommon grateful. I have not the means to repay you directly, but if there is any little errand or summons or service I can accomplish.”

  “Plainly, plainly.” The air of the common cells, the stench and confusion of noise and motion assailed Grainger. “I will require nothing of you.”

  Fallgrave’s mouth clamped shut and his hand fell.

  “The gentleman means,” said Mr. Tyre, glancing at Grainger, “that he will consider payment conditional on your release.”

  “Precisely,” said Grainger.

  “Thank you! Thank you!”

  Shackled as he was, the prisoner offered his hands to be shaken.

  He had to leave the little alcove altogether in order to stand. As he drew upright, he saw the prisoner rummaging at his side and then turn to Mr. Tyre. From his hand into Mr. Tyre’s passed a little coarse ha’penny loaf, wrapped in wax paper. “For Roarke,” whispered the man, but as Mr. Tyre placed the bread carefully in his pocket, Grainger understood the meaning of that delicate fiction.

  With Mr. Tyre, Grainger picked out a path between the benches, and the men and women crouching in filth and darkness. They reached the greater arch. Grainger wiped his hands on the kerchief he had taken out, and could not suppress a tremor.

  “I…we…had no notion of this,” said he. “No notion.”

  A look—pity, delicacy, calculation—flitted across Mr. Tyre’s face. “You have done well. These little considerations are not forgotten here. But it is also a matter of pride that every service, no matter how small, is repaid in some fashion.”

  Grainger nodded his head, leaning against the grimy wall, as if even the frigid air of the lower fastness had some power to revive him.

  “Come, sir,” said Mr. Tyre fussily. “I have been remiss in my duties. You are coming ahead. You are getting to know us. It is time that you were introduced to the Eminence of the Bellstrom Gaol.”

  IN THE MAIN yard, Grainger stopped to wet his brow and lave his hands in the icy trickle of water from the pump. He followed Mr. Tyre into the debtors’ wing. A faded notion of the lodging-house clung about the debtors’ wing, but it was a lodging sunk in shabbiness, beggary, and indolence. The dust of executed bonds and bills and promissory notes had settled into every crack.

  They came, by many turns, to a sort of open space or gallery, smoky, ill-lit, and cluttered, where a coal fire was guttering on the hearth. It was called The Cosy, in a familiar humour, by the debtors, who kept it by a common subscription. A few gentlemen were warming themselves before the fire. The raven, Roarke, strutted back and forth upon a table and uttered a cry of recognition when Mr. Tyre entered. Reading a broadsheet at the back of the room, by the phantom light of a bleary window, was Mr. Ravenscraigh.

  “It is well that he is here,” whispered Mr. Tyre. “I will introduce you now.”

  Mr. Tyre scuttled forward with a curious bow, part courtly and part servile. “Mr. Grainger, if it please you, sir.”

  Mr. Ravenscraigh was pleased to acknowledge Mr. Tyre with a cool smile. “You come somewhat tardily upon your mark: I have expected you this last half hour.”

  “Forgive me,” said Mr. Tyre, with that same mixture of caution and respect. “Mr. Grainger and I had some trivial business in the Writhans. Mr. Grainger, Mr. Ravenscraigh.”

  Mr. Ravenscraigh offered his hand to Grainger. His grip was firm and dry. “They are pleased, sir, to call me the Eminence of the Bellstrom Gaol. It is a humorous honour, a recognition merely of my advancing years and long familiarity with this place. A sort of fancy among the inmates, who acknowledge very little else in seniority or position. But they make a great deal of it and treat me with a respect and ceremony infinitely beyond my worth.”

  The two gentlemen conversing at the fire had dropped their voices by degrees and were quiet. “I am honoured,” said Grainger, “nonetheless,” and executed a short, sharp bow, as though he had been introduced in the shadows of a drawing room.

  The eyes that regarded Grainger were notably clear, grey blue, like the edge of the winter sky. Ravenscraigh’s coat was old-fashioned, sombre, a little threadbare about the collar but perfectly clean. He folded the paper in his hand and returned it to his pocket. Meanwhile, behind Grainger, the raven on the table uttered another cry.

  “Mr. Tyre,” said Ravenscraigh painstakingly, “would you be so kind as to take Roarke outside?”

  Mr. Tyre beckoned to the black bird, which hopped comfortably onto his shoulder, and withdrew.

  “From the day of my arrival here,” said Grainger, “I have heard the name of Ravenscraigh, the Eminence of the Bellstrom Gaol.”

  “Is that so? I daresay you flatter me. I am really not so considerable. Some, finding themselves in an unfamiliar place, refer to me for advice. I hold a position of confidence and respect with the turnkeys and the prisoners. I see who comes in the Bellstrom and who goes out. Consequently, the whys and wherefores are sometimes revealed to me. I am able, occasionally, to resolve small matters among the prisoners and the authorities.”

  “I imagine your position is a very prominent one,” said Grainger.

  “Not at all. I am mostly disregarded in my place by the fire. But I have seen a child born within these very walls raised into a sullen boy, thence to a ruffian, thence to a cutthroat, and depart these gates for the gallows. I am no more than a dusty portrait in a great house: everyone has passed me, few think much on me.”

  “Those who have a thought to know this place better must surely esteem you,” said Grainger.

  The faded blue eyes fixed on Grainger with a stir of interest. “Indeed! How so?”

  “That is, by whatever trifles of rumour you may possess about this place.”

  Ravenscraigh turned to the window, which framed and divided the yard where a few inmates were parading in weary loops. “A gaol is not unlike society, for a fashionable drawing-room is as much enclosed as a ship at sea, or a military camp, or a monastery, or a cell. This little glass reflects its natural order, its aristocracy, its labourers, and its outlaws. You will find here all the passions: fear, jealousy, contempt, ambition, cunning, anger, resignation, melancholy, hunger, greed, and desire. They are magnified, perforce, by proximity; there is that in the prison which sharpens these qualities, but they are no different in kind or occurrence.”

  “You speak slightingly of society,” remarked Grainger.

  “I hope not. You see me much reduced, but I was once known in genteel circles, before the accidents of youthful folly and unsuitability for commerce reduced me to this state. I recall your good father, an honourable, upright man, and your elegant mother. If I draw a comparison, it is only by means of an illustration.”

  “I thank you,” said Grainger. “But you frame your remarks broadly.”

  “You are inclined to specifics? Come now, you hesitate.”

  “You know my case,” said Grainger, in a low voice.

  “It is most regrettable,” said the Eminence of the Bellstrom Gaol, with an air of sublime patronage. “You strike me as a presentable young man, and the rumours about your person do not match your demeanour.”

  Grainger nodded slightly. “I fear I am no longer the least bit presentable. Nevertheless, if you, as a gentleman in possession of so many confidences, should chance to hear of any rumour respecting my position, I would be greatly obliged.”

  “You over-estimate my influence,” said Ravenscraigh. “I
subsist here on small gratuities and—(ahem)—tokens of respect.”

  “I have seen you, occasionally, in consultation with Mr. Brock.”

  A cloud of caution and unease passed over the older man’s face. “Mr. Brock is, in the course of his profession, pleased to consult with me on obscure matters of fact. I am yet a prisoner, and if he presses me I must oblige. But I impeach no character. I admit nothing against any person.”

  “Of course, of course,” said Grainger hastily. “I mean only that in my case, some admission, some rumour, the gossip of the gaolhouse, could lead to my release and the restoration of my honour.”

  “As a matter bearing upon the honour of a gentleman,” said Ravenscraigh, with a light emphasis on this last word, “I am at your disposal. But a prison is also a secretive place, and not a scene for open enquiries. Have a care, Mr. Grainger. Mr. Tallow is one of our brighter lights. He is feared, naturally, for he is temperamental, but he exerts a great influence, and he will not take kindly to the line of questioning you have suggested to me here.”

  “I am grateful for your consideration,” said Grainger. “But I am not moved by intimidation.”

  “I presume to advise you this much,” said Ravenscraigh. “Be wary of thieves. Murderers, on the other hand, are generally accounted honest. With care, you may proceed far.”

  “Your servant, sir,” said Grainger.

  “Your servant.”

  The interview was concluded. The old man reached into his coat pocket for some scrap of paper or another. Grainger tarried but a moment, to lay a crown on a little dusty table, where a few other pecuniary tokens seemed to gather. As he descended from the debtors’ wing, Grainger could not suppress a shudder. I have seen a great deal this day, he thought, from a most pitiful prisoner to a curious shadow of gentility and respectability. In the one, despair and injustice. In the other, self-possession, and yet is he, too, not tainted by the habits and associations of his long imprisonment? A curious pair of exemplars. It remains to be seen if I will rise up among these halls, or merely delay yet, like a man treading water in the aftermath of a shipwreck, my descent into its uttermost depths.

  CHAPTER X.

  Mr. Palliser’s Shadow.

  QUILLBY HAD A MIND to meet with Mr. Palliser, and Mr. Palliser had a mind not to be met. If Quillby entered a drawing-room, Palliser found that drawing-room intolerable and left the room. If Quillby came by the theatre, Palliser found the play tedious and made haste to depart. If Quillby saw Palliser on the street or near the door of a coffeehouse, Palliser abruptly recalled an appointment in the opposite direction.

  The fashionable rumour held that Palliser was engaged to a young lady of mercantile aspect and background. Rumour held it, likewise, that Palliser brought nothing to the match but his good name and a skein of debts, and that he lived in daily terror of his creditors. William, who was becoming by degrees adept in the matter of rumours, resolved to try the truth of this himself, and so he installed himself as Palliser’s shadow.

  Palliser led William through a dreary maze of vice and dissipation. He spent evenings in card-rooms, with too little candlelight and too much smoke, and the later night in bawdy-houses. At cards, he usually lost, and in the bawdy-houses, he was timid and retiring. Seeing his prey among these scenes, carousing or mishandled by the rakes and whores of the town, filled Quillby with a sense of wretchedness at his spying.

  At every turn, however, Palliser’s purse magically refilled itself, for it was nightly opened to every leech and sycophant, empty each morning, and yet never exhausted. Only once did Palliser approach a counting-house, a curious old mansion at the back of a deserted court in Staverside, but for all his staring at the blank windows and enquiries in the neighbourhood, Quillby found out nothing more about it.

  It was on one of these starlit missions, on a black night of the new moon, after a frigid rain had passed and left all the streets gleaming wetly, that Quillby, returning home, came across Palliser. Palliser still met with his friend, Harton, on occasion, but tonight he was quite alone and in a state of near stupefaction, leaning against a dripping portal.

  “’Ssss Mr. Qilliamby,” said Palliser, hoarsely, as William approached.

  “Mr. Palliser.” William was surprised and ill at ease.

  “’Ssss…not s’possed to talk to you.”

  “Mr. Palliser, you seem indisposed.”

  Palliser was very pale, and his face bobbed and swayed in the gloom. “Need ter, need ter, rest a bit. Where’ve th’uthers gone?”

  William looked around and saw only the bleak streets and the reeking court on the threshold of which Palliser was leaning.

  “Perhaps I can assist you.”

  “Not ssss-s’possed to talk to you.”

  “If you lean on my arm and allow me to guide you, we shall not be talking,” observed William.

  Palliser seemed to reflect on this by letting his shoulder slide a few more inches down the dripping bricks. William heard footsteps behind them and whispering. Glancing back, he saw two heavy shapes of men draw up in the shadows of the shop-front across the street.

  “Come,” he said urgently, “we should not linger here.”

  “Give me your arm,” assented Palliser, after some sincere thought and puffing of his cheeks. “Just getting my breath back, you know?”

  “Quite right,” said William quickly. “Let us go.”

  Palliser leaned against William and took a few shambling steps away from his resting place and into the centre of the street. Palliser was by no means heavy, being narrow-chested and spare, but seemed to have difficulty in finding his right direction and pace, which caused William some inconvenience in maintaining his.

  “Perhaps we should go a little faster,” observed William, glancing again over his shoulder.

  “Esss, demned nuisance,” interposed Mr. Palliser.

  “What?” William was distracted.

  “Demned liberty. What do you have to go, following a feller ’bout for?”

  The flagstones were slick and wet, and Palliser, in fine pumps with wide buckles, had difficulty remaining upright.

  William permitted himself a sigh. “I have questions of a particular and pressing nature, which I can address only to you.”

  “They all said,” returned Palliser, with sudden and particular emphasis, “that I was not ss-supposed to talk to you.”

  “Who said?” asked William. They were going quickly, though erratically, down the dark and twisting byways. Yet William fancied he heard footsteps still, mingled with their own and keeping pace.

  “Fellows, you know, everyone. Said it was not sound, gentlemanly thing to do.”

  “Why not?”

  “Murder. Friend of the accused. Criminal matter. Poor Piers—Mr. Massingham. Demned nuisance. Demned shame…”

  They had come near the river, sensed by the levelling of the streets and the sound of running water. As William urged, they made haste on the flat ground and found one of the higher bridges. The footsteps that had followed them down the hill seemed to have faded. They crossed the arch of the old bridge, but in the middle Palliser was overcome again and leaned upon the wall, where he showed a great interest in the formless black waters flowing underneath. Quillby waited for him, resting on one elbow.

  “Mr. Palliser,” said William gently, “I implore you, if you can, to recall that fatal night.”

  “Bad business,” groaned Palliser. “A bad business between gentlemen.”

  “Do you remember, you met the others at an inn in Steergate, a strange, out-of-the-way place. You were there, with Harton and Kempe and Massingham. Did any other gentleman join you there or meet you there, a tall gentleman, with a limp?”

  “What other gentleman?”

  “I do not know what name he might have had, only that he was seen later with Mr. Massingham. A man with a limp, a very plain limp.”

  “Harton and I, we were drinking champagne, a filthy lot of champagne. And brandy. We took a private room, on the courtyard.
No other gentleman.”

  “Was Mr. Massingham expecting anyone? Was anyone to join you later?”

  Palliser’s hat, since his head was extended out over the water, began to slide. Palliser caught his hat in his hands before it could tumble into the river. He looked sidelong at Quillby. “He was expecting you. He thought you would offer a challenge.”

  “Besides me,” said Quillby coldly.

  Palliser drew long breaths. “I asked him why we were lingering there. He was irritable. He said I was too weak-livered and womanish to understand a matter between gentlemen. Perhaps he was waiting for someone. But I say, a gentleman needn’t submit to such abuse, even from friends. I left then. Demn business. Demn bad business. I should not have left. It was unmanly, I own.”

  “Are you recovered?” asked William. “Should we move on?”

  “You seem a decent fellow,” said Palliser. “Pity your friend is a murderer. Shouldn’t speak to you, you know.”

  “Perhaps,” said William, as the two resumed their walk across the bridge, “there is something else they don’t wish you to tell me.”

  Palliser exerted himself to pull his recovered hat over his ears. “Don’t risk it, they said. Affairs in order. No upsets. Chap’s engaged. Fine girl. Not friendly, not a comfortable girl, but very fine, solid family, connections, sort of thing. Solid people. No call for scandal,” muttered Palliser. “Don’t let the thing slip!”

  “What thing?” said William, growing cross. “What’s the matter?”

  “If only Piers were here,” said Palliser. “He could advise me.”

  “What would he advise?”

  “Not to say!” concluded Palliser miserably.

  They walked on. Palliser had great difficulty in holding to a straight line and an upright carriage, and from moment to moment would blunder against William, who would steady him and push him on. The night was growing thin, and William’s thoughts were cooler.